“I had an affinity for pandas. Something about clumsy vegetarians struck a chord with me.”

“So, you're telling me the zoo commissioned you to make a zombie panda in order to avoid a potential international incident.”

“I didn't want to think about the fact that she could smell me, or that she just joked about eating me. At least I hoped she meant it as a joke.”

“Sam, you need experts on this, and I love you, but—”“I’m so new I have that new-car smell about me?”

“There were no windows in my bedroom, so I had to sit up and read my clock to figure out how angry I should be at my visitor. Eight A.M. I hated whoever woke me up. Had they come an hour earlier, I would have also hated their families and any household pets.”

“I had no idea what I was paying James, but based on his picnic-assembling skills alone, he needed a raise.”

“When you break up with someone, and I’m not talking casual breakups here, it’s hard to take the sudden absence of such an important person in your life. It reminded me of when I’d stopped going to school and the weird uneasy feeling I’d gotten afterward, like I was forgetting to do something. My life until that point had pivoted around some form of education, and all of a sudden, it was gone. Homework, classes, running around, and then – bam – nothing but a life of work stretching out before you. No one prepares you for that feeling or even mentions it. You just suddenly have a gap and have to decide how to fill it. A break up is like that gap, only much, much more painful. One day the person you talked to constantly or did stuff with is just absent. Gone. Poof. And even though I’m not one of those people who has to be in a relationship all the time, I was feeling at a loss.”